Crocodile rock

Thursday, 30/08/2012 - 76 A.D. 

One good thing about Reef Backapckers Hostel is that they provide you with free evening meals – tonight’s being a voucher for a local bar called Gilligan’s a short walk down Grafton Street. I was a bit dubious that the voucher entitled us to one “backpacker’s meal”…oh yeah, what’s that? A small bowl of lentil soup? It turned out to be a tasty plate of bangers and mash (there was also some kind of vegetarian pasta option). I also had my first pint of beer for over a month…don’t think I’ve gone that long since I was sixteen!

An aside - one thing I have observed about people in Cairns is that they love to walk around in bare feet. On several occasions I have seen people walking barefoot while carrying their shoes. When we first arrived at the hostel there was a pair of flip flops abandoned on our side of the desk. When Tim asked if they were the free shoes that came with the room, the receptionist didn’t get the joke.

We returned to Reef after our free meal and cracked open the fizz. Immediately Eddie came to join us and ask us if we were going out. This wasn’t just a random approach as Eddie is…well, we’re not quite sure what he is, but he seems to arrange parties for the hostel guests. And he’s even more bubbly than the faux champagne we were drinking. Plus he’s got all of the free admittance vouchers for all the local bars and he thrusts them in to our hands, ignoring our pleas that we spent the previous night on aiport seats and we want a quiet one tonight.

Sitting by the TV and playing cards (a habit from our camper van evenings that we’ll take a while to break), two girls who looked about 13 came up and asked if we minded if they put a film on – 40 days and 40 nights. Whether we liked it or not (not really, in my case), we would have heard it from our bedroom given that the volume was very high. I was surprised no one came out to tell them they were past the 23:00 curfew for noise. Instead, one guy returned from doing whatever he’d been doing out in the Cairns metropolitan area with a face like thunder and proceeded to take off his boots and leave them outside of the room. Yeah right, as if they were going to make it any dirtier!

It seems as though there are two main types of groups in this hostel:

     
Those who sleep in late every day, spend the afternoon sitting around in the sun and being boisterous, then go out and get drunk at night – the so-called cool kids.

Those who get up early, spend the day sight-seeing, and go to bed before 10 p.m. without having anything to drink – the so-called saddos.

Then, in the middle of those two, you’ve got me and Our Kid. I am reluctant to use the tag of "the inbetweeners", but it kinda fits. 

If I remember correctly, we went to bed about 23:30. The party people next door were still going full throttle, but I had to smile to myself at the sound of some irate old guy having a go at them for noise pollution and threatening to call the police. It all quietened down after that. Good man!

Next morning we got up and found a random bloke asleep on the couch outside of our room. We were up at 8.30 because that was when breakfast was served. I say “breakfast”, but there was a packet of cornflakes and a carton of milk placed on the kitchen counter, along with a selection of jams, but no bread. Apparently on Mondays it’s bacon and eggs…can’t believe I missed that! We’d ended up drinking the previous night’s bubbly out of mugs (bright green and plastic in Tim’s case) and when I saw a Danish girl we’d been talking to filling herself a BOWL of coffee, we decided it would be wise to hold on to the mugs. We also chatted to Kyle, from Colorado, USA – sadly one of the states we didn’t get to visit, but we were able to tell him all about our American adventures. We also asked him about things to do in the area and he suggested we should go up to the botanical gardens because they have a freshwater crocodile up there. Cool! He then broke off to say that he liked my shoes and I was so surprised that I couldn’t remember the words “Sports Direct” and simply said, “bought in England”.

Upon checking on our white clothes that we’d left on the rear balcony of the building to dry overnight, it looked like Operation Bleach had, bizarrely, been a success. Okay, so a bit of the blue had now turned yellow on the arm of the T-shirt, but I roll the sleeves up anyway so no one would see it.

After freshening up, putting the sun cream on, etc., we headed out, first going to the opticians for a cheap screw (one of them fell out of my sunglasses while in storage during the New Zealand adventure). At this point I noticed that I had a few bite marks on my legs and became slightly concerned that on each leg the marks formed a triangle of bites. Still, they only itched and I didn’t feel any strange symptoms. Then I remembered that it’s bites that come up looking like a triangle of pin pricks which is something to watch out for and I left them alone (and only scratched them once the whole day).

It was quite a long walk to the botanical gardens (in fact, not just a botanical gardens, more a park and lake complex). There were lots of interesting birds hanging around, such as the Australian Brush Turkey and some mud crabs down by the river. At one point we got up close to an interesting spider before I remembered that this was Oz and not NZ – they actually have poisonous things here!

Unfortunately the crocs were nowhere to be seen at the freshwater lake. Upon researching it later, it looked as though there was an occasion where one took up residence there, but the rangers soon took it away again. Makes sense because there were no warning signs around the banks, despite this being macho Australia where compensation culture doesn’t exist. “I’m going to sue the parks department because I got bitten by a croc!” “Ya shouldn’t have been in the park in the first place ya daft bugger! Case dismissed!” Oh well, guess the croccy-spotting will just have to wait!

Upon stopping off for lunch on a bench halfway along the rainforest boardwalk, I received my first G`day from a middle-aged couple. The guy took one look at the way my sarnies, crisps and various photographing equipment was laid out on the bench and remarked, “You look well organised!” I wanted to reply with, “That’s what comes from being an MRIS manager!” but words escaped me and I simply chuckled. It was good that I had stopped for lunch as it was well-past 12 o`clock and I was starting to see birds everywhere (that’s not a metaphor, it's simply because I was in a wildlife park).

The actual "botanical gardens" part of the botanical gardens was okay, but you have to remember that coming from New Zealand I’ve seen more botanical gardens than David Bellamy. Plus my legs were really starting to itch and I needed something to focus my mind away from that temptation. And so we headed back to Reef, which is starting to feel like home now, as these places always do by the second day.

We have a faller. Water Bottle has sprung a leak and is making everything in my day bag a bit damp. Water Bottle was purchased on the second day of the trip in New York and has been with me ever since. Water Bottle made it all of the way across America and I hoped Water Bottle would make it all of the way to India, but alas it was not to be. Rest in peace, Water Bottle. Or rest in the bin.

Come the cool night air (great to stroll in), we exchanged our shorts for jeans and headed out for our free Backpacker’s Meals at Gilligans. Tonight on the menu was chilli con carne, which I know will make my Auntie Carol very happy (long story). Unfortunately it didn’t touch the sides for Tim and his tapeworm complained, so we headed towards the Esplanade (AKA “The Nard”) and found a little place serving pies and known as Pie Face. It was a long way from Wigan, but it did the job.

Before heading back to the hostel to plan the next leg of our Australian journey, we fancied a pint or two in the happening bars of Cairns. Couldn’t really find any though – where was Eddie when we needed him? I’d shouted him on my way out that night, asking where the best place to drink was, but he didn’t hear me…probably too busy whooping. Onward we searched, but all we came across were family restaurants. Just to give me the Birkdale blues, we ended up at a place called The Crown. I had a pint of Pure Blonde. Man, that was one tasty pint, or should I say one tasty “schooner” (three quarters of an English pint).